


You Don't Like Anybody

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [62]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Drinking, F/F, M/M, Spin the Bottle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 20:10:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15032270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: They shouldn’t let Tony throw parties. Period.





	You Don't Like Anybody

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Spin the bottle. Prompt from this [generator](http://colormayfade.tumblr.com/generator).

They shouldn’t let Tony throw parties. Period.

They’ve agreed on this before, Nat is sure, and yet they always seem to end up back at the beach house, the one that Tony’s parents have unofficially gifted him, even though at 19 he is categorically less responsible than 95% of the freshmen that Nat knows. He’s older than all of them but it seems like they spend most of their time keeping him out of trouble, or at least pooling their money to bail him out of jail. He still hasn’t paid them back for the last time, a semi-bullshit DUI up on Mulholland that as far as Nat knows, Stark Sr. was still in the dark about--though honestly, Nat wasn’t sure how. But then, Mr. Stark has built his life on willful ignorance--weapons sold to terrorists? How could he have known? His company using shady ways to report revenue? Rogue accountants, ignorant managers--if only they’d told him sooner, he’d have stopped it. What was one more set of facts he didn’t want to see? Even if they involved his only son.

There are some benefits to Mr. Stark’s hands-off approach, though. Like a big, beautiful house right on the water, set apart from the rest of the chi-chi neighborhood. It’s quiet there at night: no cars, no people, no cops. They can be as loud as they want, drink as much as they please, and pass out on the soft shag rugs or the ridiculously comfortable beach chairs and sleep it off until the sun comes again.

Which is what Nat should be doing now. Sleeping. She’s had three Greyhounds and a couple of beers and the whole world is sort of pleasantly vibrating, the edges of the night worn away, leaving only sanded curves. She’s drunk as fuck and Bucky and Steve, her two favorite bookends, are having trouble keeping her upright.

“Natty Nat,” Bucky says the third time she almost falls off the couch, “quit trying to be tough and go to bed.”

“The one you were nailing Steve in 20 minutes ago? Hard pass. No thanks.”

Steve moans, a little mortified sound. “Can we not announce that to the entire free world, please?”

Nat tips her head back and leers into his candy-red face. “What part of _we could all hear you_ do you not get, Rogers? Next time, try shutting the door.”

Bucky snorts in his Solo cup and Steve glares. “Smug,” he says. “Both of you. Too fucking smug for your own good.”

“Not everyone covets the pretence of their virtue like you do, Steve.”

“No,” Bucky says, thoughtful, “but there’s somebody here who comes really damn close.”

“Hmmm?” Nat steals his cup, takes a sip--ugh, fucking pilsner--hands it right the fuck back. “Who’s that?”

Bucky juts out his chin, takes in the group gaggled up by the big picture windows. “The new girl. Clint's friend.”

“Wanda,” Steve says. “Her name’s Wanda.”

Nat squints. There is indeed a girl she doesn’t know sitting cross-legged beside Clint. Everybody else is akimbo (Sam) or supine (Tony), and by comparison, the way Wanda is sitting looks almost...prim.

“What’s her story?”

Steve bumps her shoulder. “You met her like four hours ago, Nat. Sam introduced you. Don’t you remember?”

Nat has a hazy memory of long, electric red hair, a pleated skirt, the soft press of a seriously excellent rack behind a dark, long-sleeved t-shirt, and ah, ok. No wonder she doesn’t remember the girl’s name; her hind brain got hung up on her body.

“I mean, I can see what she looks like,” she says, “this Wanda girl. But where are you getting the whole holier-than-Stevie vibe?”

“What?” Steve protests, petulant. “I am  _not_ holy.”

“We know, baby,” Bucky says, a gleam of teeth. “You just had my cock up your ass. Nobody’s gonna be mistaking you for a nun tonight.”

Steve slumps down on the couch, tumbles his head petulant into Nat’s lap. “I hate you.”

Bucky laughs and reaches over, slides a hand into Steve’s hair. “Of course you do.”

“Any _way_ ,” Nat says, “Wanda, virtue, go.”

“She transferred here from some private school. Religious. Catholic, maybe? Or some creepy Evangelical thing. I don’t know. All that Jesus stuff runs together.” Bucky makes a face. “Repressive anti-life bullshit. All of it.”

“‘K,” Nat says, patting Bucky’s knee. “I’ve heard that rant before, bud. Stay on topic, huh?”

“Yeah, yeah. Ok. So she’s been here like two months and she hasn’t gone anywhere outside of school: no sportsball things or dances or parties. And no dates, so far as I know.”

“Maybe she thinks we’re all losers. Or sinners or something.”

“Nah,” Steve says, yawning. “She’s actually really nice. We have art together sixth period.”

“She paints?” Nat asks.

“No, she throws pots. She’s got great hands.” Steve sighs, soft and sleep, and snuggles into Nat’s lap. “And she moved here ‘cause her parents broke up. Her mom stayed in Seattle with her brother, and her dad brought her down here.”

Across the room, Clint throws down a good hand, he must, because he leaps up and starts crowing, doing this damn chicken dance. The circle goes to pieces, even Wanda, who throws her head back and laughs and laughs, this great booming sound that seems so much bigger than she is and something, some little light Nat's kept under a bushel for what feels like ages, it catches a spark.

“So you both know this girl.”

“Yeah,” Bucky shrugs.

“A little,” Steve nods.

“And you didn’t bother to mention her to me, why?”

“Because we didn’t think that you’d care,” Bucky says.

“Because you don’t like anybody,” Steve says.

“I like you guys,” Nat protests. “And Tony. I don’t hate Tony.”

“Mmmm,” Steve says, “correction: you don’t like anybody with boobs. Not since Pepper.”

 _Fuck_. Nat’s throat closes. It’s been almost six months since Pep’s graduation, since the night she let Nat eat her out for hours before spearing her fingers through Nat’s damp hair and saying: “This was great. It’s been great with you, Nat. But I think we should break up.”

Nat’d sat up so fast she nearly fell out of Pepper’s canopy bed. “What?”

“I think,” Pepper had said, still stretched like a princess between soft golden sheets, “we should end things now.”

“But it’s only May!” Nat had said. “You don’t leave for Claremont until, what, August?” She remembered the way her heart had pounded, like a car shot too fast into high gear. “I mean, we’d talked about this, Pep, like over and over, and you said--”

“I know what I said.” Pepper’s eyes were calm, so fucking self-satisfied. “But I’ve changed my mind. I’m allowed to do that, you know.”

“I know. I know that. I just... I don’t understand.”

Pep’s mouth had turned up. “You don’t have to, though, do you?”

“So you were trying to protect me,” Nat says now, letting herself lean into Bucky. “Is that it?”

“Hell no,” Bucky says. “You can fend for yourself, любимый. We were trying to spare her from you.”

“Well now,” Tony says out of nowhere. “Don’t you three look exquisitely cozy?" He's standing on the other side of the coffee table, bobbing on his feet, looking sloppy and happy as hell, the card game still a riot behind him.

“Ah, ah,” Bucky says. “No SAT words after midnight. Them’s the rules.”

Tony shakes his head, drains the bottle of vodka in his fist. “Not my fault you can’t read, Barnes.”

“Oh, I can read fine,” Bucky says. “You know how I know? Because I broke 1200 the first time I took the SATs, when I was in eighth fucking grade. What’d you score the last time you took it, boss?”

“Look, everybody knows that standardized tests are not a good measure of--”

Nat groans, buries her face in her hands. “Can we not? God, you two. Can it.”

“Yeah,” Steve snuffles, “can it. Some of us are trying to sleep.”

“Wow,” Tony says, clutching the empty bottle to his heart, “and here I was just trying to be a good host, making sure everybody was having a good ol’ time, and what do I get for my troubles? A slap on the dick.”

“You interrupted our conversation,” Bucky says.

“Really? What salon-esque bon mots were you throwing around?”

“Nat wants to fuck Wanda,” Steve blurts out.

Nat gives him a shove. “I do _not_! Jesus fucking christ, Rogers. I didn’t say that! I don't even know the girl!"

Bucky laughs. “Yeah,” he says, “she totally does.”

“Fuck off,” Nat says, but she’s smiling. Oh crap. She’s full-on beaming, isn’t she?

Tony’s eyebrow goes up, way up. “Well, well, well, Romanoff. I didn’t know you had it in you. I thought you’d sworn off all matters of the heart. And of pussy.”

Her face is a fucking strawberry. And she’s still grinning. Damn it. “Shut up, Stark! No, I’m not--”

Ton gives her a grin of the  _I'm a fucking genius and nothing you can say can dissuade me_ variety. “Hmmm. We can’t let this kind of cosmic shit just slip by, can we? Lemme see what I can do.”

Turns out, what Tony can do is shove over the coffee table. What he can do is call everybody together and force them to sit on in a sloppy circle on the floor--everybody, that is, except the happily snoring Steve. What he can do is drop his empty vodka bottle in the center of the amoeba-shaped circle and say: “Ok. Who’s first?” That grin again, the Big Bad fucking Wolf. "Wanda, my dear. Why don't you go first?"


End file.
